The Big Lonely

Brown ( The Crime of Coy Bell ) once again makes good use of his extensive experience as a working cowboy in this elegiac novel of the late-19th-century American West. Casey Wills, the narrator, and Josh Smith are two hardworking cowboys at the XIT ranch in Texas. Smith, it seems, has spent his youth and his health looking at the south end of northbound dogies, while Casey doesn't know if his parents are alive or dead. The plot revolves around the pair's wranglings with rustlers, but takes second place to Brown's affectionate depiction of a ranch hand's life. Casey and Josh battle the elements, sickness, boredom and, as the title implies, loneliness. For relief, they drink, banter with their buddies and hope for the comforts of some dance-hall girl (Casey, for example, longs to be in the arms of a certain gal in Tascosa, one of Texas's wildest cow towns). Although Casey's voice occasionally rings false, with too modern a sensibility or too much zeal in supplying period information, Brown renders his world with realistic detail and lots of spirit. (Dec.)